“You just want an adventure. A road trip. That’s it, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s it.”

She was silent for several minutes, then said abruptly, “I should have gone to the bank. I don’t have any money.” It had just occurred to her that this was likely to be an expensive trip.

Tucker responded promptly. “I stopped by my bank this afternoon and got some cash. Enough, I think. We’ll need to avoid plastic, avoid using ATMs because of the cameras, cell phones because they can be pinged—which is why I left mine at the shop and asked you not to bring yours—or anything else that might give them a way to track us as we move. Cash is the way to go.”

“I can’t let you—”

“Sarah, it’s not a problem.”

“Yes, it is. I can’t let you pay my way.”

“Look, if it really bothers you, we’ll settle up later. Until then, don’t worry about it.”

She was silenced, but not happy. It went against the grain for her to depend on anyone else, particularly financially. She hadn’t even allowed David to bring in an occasional bag of groceries, and he’d practically lived at her place. Something Margo had scolded her for.

“He eats like a goat, Sarah! Why the hell shouldn’t he kick in some for groceries? He’s got you cooking for him practically every night!”

Sarah frowned, a little startled to realize that the memory had roused resentment rather than pain. He had usually suggested they eat at her house. And he hadn’t been able to cook, so she always had. Sometimes he’d helped her clean up afterward, but many times he’d had to “eat and run” because of business calls he needed to make from his own apartment. Or something like that.

Now that she thought about it, he had bought dinner once or twice a week—when they ended up having sex.

Jesus, he was paying for it!

“Sarah?”

“Hmm?” Dinner out—sex. A little quid pro for his quo. Wonderful. Why didn’t I see it before?

“Don’t be upset about the money.”

She wrenched her mind back to the present and drew a breath. “Okay. But I expect you to keep track. This is my little adventure more than yours, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you pay for it.”

“Gotcha.”

“As long as we understand that.”

“We do.”

They fell silent again. Sarah shifted a bit. Mercedes or not, the backseat wasn’t a terribly comfortable bed. Then again, she was probably too edgy to sleep. Like last night. If this kept up, she’d really be a bundle of raw nerve endings. “What time is it?”

“After one.”

It felt like dawn at least, to Sarah. She was so tired.

“Why don’t you try to sleep?” he suggested.

“If you watch all night, you’ll be exhausted.”

“I can lose a night or two without it bothering me too much. Probably comes from a habit of all-night writing marathons. Try to sleep, Sarah.”

She didn’t think there was a chance in hell of her actually sleeping, but she once again closed eyes that kept drifting open, and this time she did her best to stop thinking. Following directions from a relaxation tape she’d listened to, she concentrated on letting all her muscles go limp and imagined lying peacefully on a beach listening to soothing ocean waves.

That was the last thing she remembered.

“Sarah.”

She came awake instantly, her scratchy eyes and heavy head telling her she hadn’t slept more than an hour or two, if that. “Hmm?”

“Look.”

She sat up carefully, fighting her hands free of the covers so she could rub her eyes. It took her a moment to focus, and to look where Tucker was looking, but as soon as she did, she saw them.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

The two cars, lights extinguished, were coming down the street toward the shop from the opposite direction. In an eerie quiet that didn’t even seem to contain the faint sounds of engines, the cars pulled into parking places at the shop. Doors opened—no interior lights betrayed them either—and men got out of the cars.

Sarah numbly counted eight men, four from each car. “So many,” she whispered.

Tucker nodded, silently watching.

The men slipped toward the building, some going around to the sides and back. They all seemed to be wearing black, or at least dark colors, and Sarah strained to see whether the tall watcher was among them.

“Do you see him?” she asked Tucker, still whispering.

“No.”

“Neither do—Oh. That isn’t…that can’t be…”

“But it is,” Tucker responded grimly.

One of the men had paused for a moment at the end of the walkway, and the light from a nearby streetlamp shone full on his face. Then he was moving with two others toward the stairs that led to the apartment.

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said. “Why would he be here? Why would he be doing this?”

“I don’t think we want to stick around and ask right now.” Tucker released the emergency brake, and since the car was out of gear and only the brake held it stationary on the slight incline where he had deliberately parked, it immediately began to roll forward silently.

They were well down the street when Tucker finally started the engine, but even then Sarah couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder. Already, the shop was lost to sight, and no screaming engines followed them as Tucker turned a corner and headed for the highway. But what Sarah had seen was branded in her mind.

How could she trust anyone when even cops came sneaking in the middle of the night to kill her?

“Son of a bitch.” Sergeant Lewis stood at the foot of the stairs and watched his breath mist with the curse. He was vaguely aware of one of the men coolly disabling the shop’s security system and going inside, but he didn’t bother to follow.

They wouldn’t be there. They were long gone.

And he was anxious to get out of here. If one of the neighbors happened to wake up and look out a window, he’d have to answer some very uncomfortable questions in the morning.

His cell phone rang just then, and he swiftly drew it out of an inner pocket and answered before it could ring again. “Yeah?” Of course, he knew who it would be. Who else would it be at four o’clock in the fucking morning?

“Well?”

“We missed them.”

“I know that.”

Lewis looked around at darkness and shadows and felt his heart thud a bit faster. You bastard—where are you?

“What I want to know,” the cool voice continued, “is how you intend to find them now that you’ve lost them.”

Lewis gritted his teeth and spoke between them. “I’m sure you have a suggestion.”

“I have several. You won’t like any of them.”

So what else is new.

“Meet me in one hour. The usual place.”

Lewis opened his mouth to object, but the line went dead. Slowly, he closed the phone and returned it to his pocket. He had a hollow feeling about the coming meeting.

A very hollow feeling.

SIX

“Very clever, our Mr. Mackenzie.” Brodie lowered the infrared binoculars and glanced aside to meet Cait’s gaze. “He kept Gallagher out of harm’s way and still managed to take a look at the presumed enemy.”

Cait sniffed and then rubbed her nose. It was cold on the roof of the building across from the antiques shop, and they had been up here for hours. Her nose was beginning to run. “He was too close, if you ask me. If he knew they were coming, why not just take her and run?”

“Maybe he didn’t know they were coming, just thought they might. Or maybe she knew and he wasn’t sure.”

“Even so, they could have been seen sneaking back to the car. We saw them.”

“Umm. But the others didn’t, did they.” Brodie frowned. “Odd, that. They’re usually Johnny-on-the-spot whenever something like this goes down. Wonder who fell asleep at the switch.”